The former graveyard rapid currently known as the Graveyard, up near the top. I'm guessing there are enough boulders in the river for this to have happened in any number of places, Phil was just unfortunate

Really glad to hear it worked out for the best, Phil. Just goes to show that on a river that we all run (well used to run) on a regular basis can be just as dangerous as any other. Quite sobering, as TechnoEngineer said.

In ~25 years of kayaking I've never seen a foot entrapment. I was on a WWSR course recently and the instructor said that it was so unlikely it had been dropped from the syllabus. Clearly, from this story, it can happen, but is it a major risk or one in a million?

Maybe not common, but I have read of a small number on the internet, so maybe the odds are a bit shorter than one in a million. The trouble is that it is very difficult to escape from without assistance, and therefore is highly dangerous. Maybe it doesn't happen often enough to justify any specific training, but the danger is something that all ww paddlers should be aware of at least if only so that they can look after themselves when swimming.

I've only been kayaking a few years and mostly on the sea, but I've seen one so it seems like rather less than a million to one from here.

The one I saw was relatively mild - the person pinned was taking part in a raft-race type event on a very innocuous looking grade 2 (just about) river. He came away very cold and shaken up with a nasty cut on his shin and a few bruises but fortunately nothing worse. I did a WWSR course a while afterwards but at the time was pretty much a beginner myself and really had no idea how best to make myself useful, it was all a bit sobering.

Dr Robin wrote:In ~25 years of kayaking I've never seen a foot entrapment. I was on a WWSR course recently and the instructor said that it was so unlikely it had been dropped from the syllabus. Clearly, from this story, it can happen, but is it a major risk or one in a million?

Entrapment rescues, including foot entrapment, are still on the WWSR syllabus with the note that “It should be explained that these are quite rare events, but the consequences are serious and immediate”

In ~25 years of kayaking I've never seen a foot entrapment. I was on a WWSR course recently and the instructor said that it was so unlikely it had been dropped from the syllabus. Clearly, from this story, it can happen, but is it a major risk or one in a million?

It always seemed to me that it would be untrained novices that suffered this fate based on the cases I knew of (All commercial raft passengers). Then it happened to me in a swim in particularly sievey rapid in Ecuador. It was spontaneous, I didn't try to stand, I was being swirled around underwater and was fully disoriented. I got lucky, I instantly recognized the situation, and fear fueled strength wrenched my foot free at the cost of a hyper extended knee that took a couple of years to get right again. It's real and I have a new respect for it.

Happened to me once. Lke the original example, it was on the Upper Tryweryn, though nowhere near as serious. I don't recall how I ended up in the situation. I found myself on the edge of an eddy, upright, with my leg caught between two rocks. The only pain was from the freezing cold water, but the force of the flow was such that I couldn't wriggle free, and had to be helped out.

I once helped someone who managed a foot entrapment sea kayaking, well carrying stuff to his boat on a boulder beach covered in slime. Although he was on dry land (below the tide line, we couldn't have left him more than a couple of hours or he would have drowned) the position his foot slid into made it really difficult to find the right angle to pull to get it back out. Add flowing water obscuring your view of the problem and adding pressure in the wrong direction (the flow caused it, so it will always be working against recovery!) and it is very serious no matter how rare.

I have mixed feelings on the way it has previously been covered in WWSR and even before that when we read books and taught ourselves the techniques. It can happen and it is something paddlers should be aware of enough to be able to react suitably when it happens. Most of the techniques I have ever seen discussed for snagging or cinching the victim are completely irrelevant in so far as they are only ever going to be effective if you had them set up in advance, and no-one expects the Spanish in... er foot entrapment, so you will never have the right stuff pre-set. I always consider sending a swimmer on a rope as a last resort, with a foot entrapment especially if the victims head is already under water, it is the only option and it has to be done quickly. There is no time to set up anything more sophisticated with a lower risk to the rescuers, the victim will be already drowned. I'm all for an approach that makes candidates aware, but doesn't waste their time with unrealistic rope techniques they are never going to have time to deploy.

Remember never wade or try to stand up in moving water more than knee deep - this will greatly reduce the risk, but it can still happen even in shallow water.
This is easier to say than do - I ran the upper Tryweryn with the victim (Phil) a few weeks later and had a few swims and self rescues myself, knowing that Phil had almost drowned on the same section a few weeks earlier did I definitely wait until I was in shallow or slow water before I started trying to stand up and sort myself out? I actually don't know, one of the guys has a video of me wading below ski jump to recover my canoe from the hole, pretty close to knee deep, but was it more or less when I actually stopped swimming and stood up? I defintely kept my feet up whilst swimming down fingers (another bold move which I failed spectacularly!), but I'd already bashed my knee getting out of the boat, and was the eddy really still enough for me to have stood up and started recovering my boat? (to the bank, I reverted to kayak after that, it hurt too much to kneel again!). Food for thought!

Ah, hence one our coaches on the Dee recently bellowing to a young paddler who had just taken a swim " Don't walk , don't walk, swim to an eddy". Potentially life saving advice.
Glad to hear you're still around and able to dwell on it, and pass on some useful advice.
Regards
Mike

It wasn't on purpose!
Apparently I was the only paddler in the world who didn't know the last eddy river left by the cafe isn't actually an eddy, unfortunately by the time I discovered it was all flow it was a little too late, and trying to grab the smoothest rock on the river just made things worse. Not a place to hang around upside down in an OC1, that would be the only thing worse than swimming down it!

Not a place to hang around upside down in an OC1, that would be the only thing worse than swimming down it!

I think the eddy you didn't find, Jim, is the same one I found out was only a foot deep, and tripped over my C1 blade. I then bounced down the next 50m on my head waiting for chance to roll up, which I did just before the fingers - I was not going to swim down there if I could possibly avoid it!